The Rural Voice, 2006-10, Page 37gle
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school that one year. Don's idea of
playing Ranch involved goodbye
kisses from the rancher's wife (me)
and daughters (Linda and Margaret)
before he rode out to check the herd
with his. sidekick (Kerry), and we
stayed in the ranchhopse, cooking.
Or maybe we got the idea the day
the photographer took our school
pictures, one classroom at a time,
under the maples in the schoolyard.
The pictures arrived a week later and,
when we took them home, our dad
insisted we write the names on the
backs. Rolling our eyes and sighing,
we obeyed. I'm glad Daddy lived to
hear me tell my kids to do the same,
and to thank him because today I
know who's who, even in the Grade
Six picture taken in Hallowe'en
costumes.
n our henhouse kitchen, we often
created "concoctions". Mix a
pinch of filched baking powder
and borrowed food
colouring in a
cracked bowl of
rainwater and voila,
coloured fizz. We
invented Capaluya
Water, a blend of
flower petals, water,
and face powder
shaken in a fancy
bottle. Let stand for
a week, then inhale
carefully.
Our crowning
achievement was
principles of fermentation? How
could we have foreseen our mother's
need for bone meal and other bulb -
planting equipment?
Her voice shaking more than
when she confronted the inevitable
wasps in the privy, she met us when
we arrived home from school a week
or so later. "Girls, what on earth did
you put in the henhouse cupboard?"
From her hands -on -hips stance, we
knew only the truth would be
enough.
"Pickles," I said.
"We made them," added Linda.
I think now Mother was biting her
lips to contain a laugh, but at the time
I believed she was tight-lipped with
anger. "We didn't use your good
jars," I whined, "and we only used
wild cukes."
"Well, now you can clean up,"
Mother said.
"But we did. We washed out the
pail from the
"How could we have
predicted warm
weather would
return? How could we
have understood the
principles of
fermentation?"
exploding pickles, an unintended
result. Imitating our mothers, who
canned and pickled from the
beginning of strawberry season until
frost ended the tomato crop, we
collected several wooden quart boxes
of wild cucumbers. Our hands, and
probably our clothes, collected pine
gum as a side effect. Careful of their
spines, we packed the cukes into
some discarded jars. For colour, we
sprinkled honeysuckle berries among
the pale green cukes. For syrup, we
mixed a spoonful of crushed
peppermints into rainwater. We
poured this to fill the jars, screwed
down the lids, and set our preserves
in the cupboard, turning the wooden
latch to keep out squirrels.
How could we have predicted
warm weather would return? How
could we have understood the
brine, and we even
wiped the jars like
you do."
"Come and look."
We went. We
looked. Even before
we looked, we
smelled the awful
aroma. Enough to
make a billygoat gag,
as my dad said, it
was just the prelude
to seeing the foamy,
scummy green slop
dripping from the
still -closed cupboard.
Just as I reached to twist the
wooden latch, pop! Crack! Hiss!
"Good grief!" Mother threw up
her hands. Linda gasped. I jumped
back.
After a few minutes, with no
further malicious noises from the
cupboard, I opened the door. Two
glass jars lay shattered as if by
freezing. (We'd seen that last winter
with a forgotten batch of Capaluya
Water.) Their foul-smelling contents
flowed along and off the EheIf.
That's probably when I learned to
squeeze out a rag with one hand, my
other one busy holding my nose. The
gesture still forms part of my kitchen
repertoire, when I wipe the rims of
jars to be sealed full of jam, jelly,
or—yes—pickles, none of the
exploding variety, thank goodness.0
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OCTOBER 2006 33